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Rapid emissions reductions, including reductions in deforestation-based land emissions, are the dominant source of global climate mitigation potential in the coming decades. However, carbon dioxide removal (CDR) will also have an important role to play. Despite this, it remains unclear whether current national proposals for CDR align with temperature targets. Here we show the ‘CDR gap’, that is, CDR efforts proposed by countries fall short of those in integrated assessment model scenarios that limit warming to 1.5 °C. However, the most ambitious proposals for CDR are close to levels in a low-energy demand scenario with the most-limited CDR scaling and aggressive near-term emissions reductions. Further, we observe that many countries propose to expand land-based removals, but none yet commit to substantively scaling novel methods such as bioenergy carbon capture and storage, biochar or direct air carbon capture and storage. Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) have been integrated into country-submitted reports under the Paris Agreement. However, this Analysis finds a gap between levels of CDR in these national proposals and the scenarios limiting global warming to the 1.5 °C target.

Despite the importance of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in most climate change mitigation scenarios that limit warming to well below 2 °C, the study of CDR is still a nascent field with basic questions to be resolved. Crucially, it is not known how much CDR is currently deployed at a global scale, nor how that compares to mitigation scenario estimates. Here, we address this problem by developing an estimate of global current CDR activity. We draw on national greenhouse gas inventory data combined with CDR registries and commercial databases to estimate that global anthropogenic activity presently generates ∼1985 MtCO 2 yr −1 of atmospheric removals. Almost all of these—1983 MtCO 2 yr −1 —are removals from land-use, land-use change and forestry. Non-land-management CDR projects such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, direct air capture with carbon capture and storage and biochar remove only about 2 MtCO 2 yr −1 . We compare this estimate with Shared Socioeconomic Pathways projections of CDR deployed in ‘well-below 2°C’ mitigation pathways. In so doing we demonstrate current CDR deployment would need to grow exponentially to keep the world aligned with most ‘well-below 2°C’ scenarios, which see CDR deployment growing between 75% and 100% per year between 2020 and 2030, adding ∼300–2500 MtCO 2 in total CDR capacity. To conclude we discuss uncertainties related to our estimates, and suggest priorities for the future collection and management of CDR data, particularly related to the role of the land sink in generating CDR.

Meeting the Paris Agreement targets requires deep emissions reductions supported by a scale-up in carbon dioxide removal. However, current country-reported mitigation pledges are off track to meet carbon dioxide removal needs, unless countries dramatically reduce emissions consistent with low-energy-demand scenarios. Recommendations for policy Prioritize reducing emissions rapidly across all sectors (including from deforestation and land degradation) to minimize dependency on CDR. Report planned emissions reductions and removals separately in the nationally determined contributions and long-term strategies, while acknowledging the difficulty of isolating only direct anthropogenic effects in country reporting. Focus on policies that incentivize further removals on land, support afforestation, and improve forest management and gains in soil carbon, while protecting ecosystems and biodiversity. Develop plans to mitigate future risks for removals on land, including the impacts of climate change (such as wildfires) and changes in indirect anthropogenic effects (such as carbon dioxide fertilization). Close the CDR gap by designing ‘technology push’ and ‘demand pull’ policies that promote the innovation, development and upscaling of energy-efficient, scalable, cost-effective novel CDR technologies.

[...]rising heat and humidity levels will impact labor productivity and economic growth in an economy that relies substantially on outdoor work. Wet-bulb temperature is an indicator that combines air temperature and relative humidity and provides a more accurate measure of heat stress on the human body than air temperature alone (see sidebar, “Understanding wet-bulb temperatures”).;According to the scientific literature, 35 degrees wet-bulb temperature is commonly regarded as the heat-stress limit for human survival. [...]for natural capital, we examine the potential impacts of glacial melt and runoff in the Hindu Kush region of the Himalayas; what ocean warming and acidification could mean for global fishing and the people whose livelihoods depend on it; as well as potential disturbance to forests, which cover nearly one-third of the world’s land and are key to the way of life for 2.4 billion people. Exposure to 34-degree wet-bulb temperatures will increase mortality risk for the sick and elderly, but more importantly, due to the amplifying urban heat-island effect which can raise temperatures in urban areas, for example, due to the presence of concrete buildings and limited green spaces, urban or peri-urban centers exposed to these temperatures may cross the 35-degree survivability threshold for healthy adults.

How could Earth’s changing climate impact socioeconomic systems across the world in the next three decades? A yearlong, cross-disciplinary research effort at McKinsey & Company provides some answers. Most of the climatological analysis performed for this report was done by Woods Hole Research Center (WHRC), and in other instances, we relied on publicly available climate science data, for example from institutions like the World Resources Institute. By 2100, the four RCPs lead to very different levels of warming, but the divergence is moderate out to 2050 and small to 2030. Since the research in this report is most concerned with understanding inherent physical risks, we have chosen to focus on the higher-emission scenario, i.e. RCP 8.5, because of the higher-emissions, lower-mitigation scenario it portrays, in order to assess physical risk in the absence of further decarbonization. Similar to the approach discussed above for our cases, our analyses are conducted at a grid-cell level, overlaying data on a hazard (for example, floods of different depths, with their associated likelihoods), with exposure to that hazard (for example, capital stock exposed to flooding), and a damage function that assesses resilience (for example, what share of capital stock is damaged when exposed to floods of different depths).

JRC.D.1 - Forests and Bio-Economy

[...]climate risks are rising in the context of established and complex systems, including where and how crops are grown, cities built, goods and services produced, supply chains organized, and other economic activities conducted. [...]any forward-looking approach to adaptation must be substantially more deliberate than the organic approaches of the past were. The spread of Homo sapiens across the world corresponds strongly to the resulting patterns of shifting temperature, rainfall, and vegetation. [[sidebar authors]] Such organic adaptation efforts continue to take place in the context of today’s climate exposures, though with the benefit of tens of thousands of years of societal and technological progress. [...]the major rivers that make up the Netherlands delta can now safely carry thousands more cubic meters of water per second than they could 30 years ago.